"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

The name of Claude Nobs will be forever enshrined in Deep Purple’s Smoke on the Water, the song with perhaps the most famous riff in rock history. Nobs was a co-founder of the Montreaux Jazz Festival, which by the early 1970s had grown to embrace rock artists such as Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin. In 1971, the Montreaux casino caught fire during a performance by Frank Zappa after an audience member fired a flare gun at the ceiling. Nobs dragged a number of concert goers to safety earning himself the title Funky Claude in Deep Purple’s song.

Related lyric:

They burned down the gambling house,
It died with an awful sound.
(Uh) Funky Claude was running in and out,
Pulling kids out the ground.
When it all was over,
We had to find another place.
But Swiss time was running out,
It seemed that we would lose the race.
Smoke on the water and fire in the sky.
Smoke on the water…

Comments

The real winner is that on this day in 1949, RCA Victor unveiled the 45 rpm record player, setting the stage for teenage buyers since the vinyl used was less breakable than the fragile 78s.

t-dahlgren

A bit more SOTW trivia.

The song was put together very late in the recording session, when they realized they needed another track to fill up the album. The famous riff had been recorded early on during the session, but at the time there was no plans to do anything with it. Only later did they resurrect it, writing the lyrics, creating a full arrangement, and then lastly adding the vocals.

Jim

I recall hearing this same story many years ago. There is a photo of Claude Nobs on the Machine Head album (the vinyl version). Saw bits of Montreux Jazz Fest on TV recently. DP was playing and Claude came out and was introduced to the audience.

Finrod Felagund

“Real songs are about deals with the devil, far off lands, and where you can find smoke in relation to water” — Otto, from The Simpsons

http://twitter.com/LarsonianInst Erik Larson

All those years I thought he was singing about “a Monkey Paw” or a “a Monkey Claw”–I had know idea what that meant. This makes vastly more sense.